This Week In Facebook – September 27, 2009

It’s time again for our weekly recap of the latest Facebook news stories! While Facebook didn’t acquire any companies, or surpass any significant milestones this week, there was still plenty of news for the fast growing social platform. We also have the second volume of the This Week In Facebook video series being produced by my sister. The video is jam packed with YoVillians, burglars, and a game of Risk so check it out!

Protests In YoVille

This week was a volatile one for the world of YoVille, as the much beloved widgets factory was transformed into a Sweets Factory. The result was that users need to come back to the game regularly to ensure that their cookies don’t burn. It’s a similar system to FarmVille (or Farm Town) in which users’ crops will go bad after a certain amount of time. Over 43,000 people have now joined a cause on Facebook which calls for a return to the widget factory. Unfortunately for the angry YoVillians it’s doubtful that their protest will be successful.

TweetDeck Launches Full Facebook Support

At the beginning of the week TweetDeck finally launched full support for Facebook. This means you can now filter your Facebook stream by friends and view news stories from your favorite Facebook Pages. You can also filter content based on whether they are photos, videos, or status updates. No matter what the content is, it’s now available via TweetDeck.

Facebook and Nielsen Partner On Brand Lift

Last week Facebook officially announced a partnership with Nielsen which enables brands to track the effectiveness of ad campaigns that they run on Facebook. We posted live coverage of the event which included Sheryl Sandberg, and some statements from the CEO of Nielsen and the CEO of Sony Pictures. The new product leverages pre- and post-advertisement exposure polls to determine how much “awareness” was generated.

Dizzy Networks Launches Thanks To SocialHour

Dizzy Networks, a new ad network for developers, has launched using SocialHour’s platform as a backbone. One source we spoke to claimed that this was simply a new face on SocialHour and given that the new company’s website is hosted by the same company, it’s fairly likely that this could be true. However the CEO of the new company, Jeremy Olsson, has told us that the company is simply licensing the ad server from SocialHour. While the misleading ads and landing pages appear to be gone, the company is selling similar products like IQ quizzes.

New Applications Added To Facebook Gift Shop

Yesterday we wrote about three new developers being added to the Facebook gift shop: JibJab, GreetBeatz, and someecards. Facebook has been running tests with a select group of developers to use the gift shop as a platform for selling creative forms of virtual gifts. We’re expecting this to become a more robust platform over the coming months once tests prove successful.